Chapter 6
Clint debated on what to say at this moment. Was it his turn to give a speech in Alfred’s name with no-one but Bruce to listen? Did Bruce expect Clint to report on Damian’s status as a good little soldier? Well, he could just fuck off if that’s what he wanted.
“Did you tell them yet?” Bruce asked, looking at a photograph in his hand. “Your brothers?”
Oh, it was going to be about this. Fun. Clint pulled out a chair and turned it around, resting his arms on the back. “Didn’t really feel like the right time, you know.”
“They need someone like you. Someone who can keep them together. Focused.”
“Yeah, not really my thing. I’m more of a lone wolf.”
Bruce snorted. “Clint, you’ve become better than any of us. You don’t let the dark absorb you. You do what needs to be done, no matter what your orders say. I should have helped you more when you were younger, give you a better aim for your skills—”
“Bruce.” Clint held up a hand to stop the apology. “You helped me when I needed it. I will always be thankful to you for that. But I made my choices, and I take responsibility for the good things I do, as well as the bad. Nothing you could have done would have changed my mind back then, and we both know that.”
Nodding, Bruce took a drink of his ginger ale. “You were stubborn back then.”
Clint laughed. “I still am. It’s one of my defining features.”
“So I heard.” Bruce smiled. “Alfred would have loved Bobbi.”
Clint smiled at that. “She would have loved him. Probably asked him for fight tips as well as cooking advice.”
“Did she know, before Paris?”
It was Clint’s turn to nod. “She did. I mean, if I didn’t, she’d have questions when learning what my full, legal name is.”
“But about the other side?”
“I never lied to my wife about who I am or where I came from.” Clint shrugged. “But some things don’t need to be known until it comes up.”
“Good.” Bruce looked at the picture again, then pushed it across to Clint. It was a shot of part of the Batfamily in the cave with Alfred in the chair and the others around him. Well, almost everyone—Jason was missing.
“Is there a reason Jason isn’t in this?”
“You need to ask Jason that.” Bruce got up and headed to the bar.
Clint stood up to follow him. “No, I’m asking you. Missing something like this would be a two-person problem, and I know Jason loved Alfred a lot.”
“Clint…”
“Not only that,” Clint continued without pausing, “but you let your own kid carry the guilt of Alfred’s death and didn’t go and try to comfort him. Hell, you drove Ric away from Gotham when he should be at home with his family.”
Bruce slammed his glass down on the bar. “That’s enough.”
“No, I’m just beginning.” Clint kept his voice calm even as he felt the adrenaline started coursing through his body. “But you already know all this. But you keep pushing people away who want to help you—who need you. Damian, Tim, Jason, and especially Ric need you to stop being Batman for five seconds and be their father. I don’t know what the others said while I was outside, but I’m deaf and I could hear the pain they’re all in.”
Bruce turned and opened his mouth, but Clint didn’t stop. “Don’t even try to explain how they’ll figure it out—of course they will. But what part do you plan on playing in helping them? How many kids do you have to throw out of the nest before you learn that aren’t really birds? Will you figure it out before Damian turns on you like Jason did, or he leaves and doesn’t speak to you for years like Dick and I did?”
“Are you done?” There was no heat in Bruce’s voice. Clint took a moment to look at him and realized that Bruce was slumped forward, his shoulders hanging in defeat. For a moment, Clint felt regret at how he handled this, but he wouldn’t take a single word back.
"Nope." He jumped over the bar and refilled Bruce’s glass, then poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. “You know, when I was bedridden, I’d get frustrated not seeing you or Dick for days. At those times, Alfred always told me something.”
Eleven years ago…
Alfred sat in a recliner next to the fire in Clint’s room, a book opened in his lap. He was reading Oliver Twist aloud as Clint lay in bed, still encrusted in plaster.
“Oliver should get out while he can,” Clint stated after the scene where Fagan welcomed Oliver into the group. “Once he’s no use to them, they’ll just throw him under the bus.”
Alfred closed the book. “I assure you, Master Clint, this story does have a satisfying ending.”
“There’s no such thing as a satisfying ending.” Clint picked at his blanket with his one good hand. “There’s just pain… or faking it to avoid getting hurt. No one really cares about kids like us.”
“Now that is just rubbish. Master Bruce cares for you very much.”
“If he cared, he’d be the one in here keeping me company at night.” It was still weeks before Clint would learn the truth of why Bruce wasn’t there, so Clint believed he was the reason. “He’s just doing this because Dick asked. I’m just a burden to him.”
Alfred stood up, leaving the book in the chair before standing beside the bed. “Master Clint, I know things seem odd with the daily schedules Masters Bruce and Dick keep, but I know they do not see you as a burden.”
Clint took a shaky breath, trying to keep his emotions in check. “I thought he’d be different. I let myself think maybe here, after seeing how close he and Dick are, that just maybe I’d find out what it was like having a real father. But like always, I’m just alone and in pain, and he doesn’t care.”
“Nonsense. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have adopted you,” Alfred stated, sitting on the edge of the bed. “He would have just set up a fund to see to your care and found you a guardian to watch over you. Instead, he brought you across half the country and hired the best specialists he could find to give you a second chance at a good life.”
“Yeah. Great PR stunt.”
“He didn’t do it for that. He did it because he sees something in you. Master Bruce may not know how to be the kind of father you dream of, yet he tries to give Master Dick, and now you, the life he wished he could have had with his own parents. He’s had no one show him how to do this, so he does make mistakes, but that’s how you learn—trial and error. The mistakes he made with Dick will not be repeated with you. You just need to make sure you let him know when he makes those mistakes, so he can learn.”
Clint looked up at Alfred and wasn’t surprised to feel the tears escape from his eyes. Alfred smiled and pulled out a handkerchief before drying each side of his face. “Do you think he’ll listen?”
Now…
“…Master Bruce will always be there for you, in good times and in bad. You just have to have faith in him, and patience for him to learn the best way to help.”
Clint hugged his coffee cup, having somehow downed half of it while talking. Bruce’s head was tilted to listen to Clint’s words with a sad smile.
“So, what do you think he’d say now?” Bruce asked.
“Honestly? I think he’d tell you to get off your bloody ass and take care of your boys because they are your legacy, not the Batman.” Clint finished his drink and put it in the sink. “Ask Tim to help you. Help Damian understand that he isn’t to blame for all this. Make Jason know that he is a part of the family by involving him in things not related to crime fighting. And make amends with Ric, who is a good man even if he’s not Dick. Bring your boys home to be a family again.”
“And what about you?” Bruce asked, watching Clint walk around the bar. “What can I do to bring you home.”
Clint snorted, then looked at Bruce with a smirk. “Actually make the manor a home worth coming back to, and not a creepy museum of your parents and lost childhood.”
Bruce blinked, then let out a small laugh. “Is that how you always saw it?”
“Pretty much. Everything but the garden.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Bruce held out his hand, and Clint clasped it.
“Good, and make sure my stuff stays in my room so I can see it when I come visit.”
Ric was waiting against the motorcycles as Clint exited. He could tell something good happened between them as the stiffness in Clint’s upper body had loosened. Ric held up the untouched coffee in his right hand, which Clint eagerly grabbed.
“Everything good?” Ric asked.
Clint nodded as he took a long drink. “Mostly, yeah.”
When he lowered the cup, Ric noticed concern in his friend’s eyes. “What’s up?”
“Ric, you remember I told you about how I came to live with you and Bruce when I was sixteen to recover from an accident?”
“Yeah.”
Clint fiddled with the coffee sleeve on his cup. “I left something out of the story.”
Ric narrowed his eyes. Clint never lied to him—that he knew—but he had a sense that this missing piece was something big. “Which was…?”
“I’m more than just your friend,” Clint said slowly. “Bruce adopted me. So legally, we're brothers.”
It took a minute for Ric to take that in, but he nodded. “I know we always talked about how we’re like brothers back in the circus, but somehow, I think I knew that this whole time.”
Clint’s eyes widened. “You remember it?”
Ric shook his head. “No, it’s more like a feeling. I knew it’s true the moment you said it. It just… felt right.”
“Well, I’m going to take that as a good sign that you’re not only remembering things, or at least feelings, but that I’m unforgettable in being your sibling.”
“Yeah, don’t push it too far.” Ric finished his coffee and tossed it into the trash can before straddling his motorcycle. “Still got a long way to go before I figure this out.”
Clint’s cup joined Ric’s as he too saddled up. “Yeah, well just be patient. Family’s always there for you when you need them. All you have to do is ask.”
They started up their motorcycles and put their helmets on. As they kicked off, Ric asked, “So does Jason know that you guys are brothers?”
“Not yet,” Clint sighed.
Ric laughed. “Oh, I can’t wait to see how that’s going to turn out.” He heard Clint swear as they drove off, knowing that Clint would chase him all the way back to Blüdhaven for that. And somewhere deep inside, Ric knew Alfred was looking down upon them and smiling.
Thanks, Alfred.